Red Riding Hood (2011)

Red Riding Hood Synopsis

In Red Riding Hood, Seyfried plays Valerie, a beautiful young woman torn between two men. She is in love with a brooding outsider, Peter (Shiloh Fernandez), but her parents have arranged for her to marry the wealthy Henry (Max Irons). Unwilling to lose each other, Valerie and Peter are planning to run away together when they learn that Valerie's older sister has been killed by the werewolf that prowls the dark forest surrounding their village.

For years, the people have maintained an uneasy truce with the beast, offering the creature a monthly animal sacrifice. But under a blood red moon, the wolf has upped the stakes by taking a human life. Hungry for revenge, the people call on famed werewolf hunter, Father Solomon (Gary Oldman), to help them kill the wolf. But Solomon's arrival brings unintended consequences as he warns that the wolf, who takes human form by day, could be any one of them.

As the death toll rises with each moon, Valerie begins to suspect that the werewolf could be someone she loves. As panic grips the town, Valerie discovers that she has a unique connection to the beast--one that inexorably draws them together, making her both suspect...and bait.

At first glance, I was definitely onboard with the idea of a dark retelling of Little Red Riding Hood featuring werewolves and starring Amanda Seyfried and Gary Oldman. Then the little things started bothering me. The presence of Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke. That one dude in the trailers with the Robert Pattinson hair. The overall Twilight-y vibe that became more and more obvious the closer the film got to release.

Catherine Hardwicke's Twilight-friendly retelling of Little Red Riding Hood had some good things go for it. Lush visuals. A cast including Gary Oldman and Amanda Seyfried. Werewolves. Granted, Red Riding Hood automatically lost points for including a character with Edward Cullen hair, but then again, I probably wasn't the target audience.

This year's spate of spring flicks are sputtering onto the screen, adding to 2011's trail of blown budgets and slipping ticket sales. Three new entries made their bid at the box office this weekend, but only one showed signs of bucking the trend. Battle: Los Angeles banked the highest opening Friday sales year-to-date and earned the second highest opening weekend of the year so far

It's an underwhelming week for the Rotten Watch as a trio of completely uninspiring movies hit theaters. I'm still angry at one of my predictions from last week which I'll get to at the bottom. But before that Los Angeles is under attack aliens that aren't the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, Amanda Seyfried deals with the big, bad wolf, and aliens need some motherly love.

Seyfried's still got the kickin' red hood but now she's running through the forest like she's on a mission, or maybe chasing after Ron, Hermione and Harry in one of those forest scenes from Harry Potter and the Deathly

After over a year of waiting, this is our first look at former Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke’s take on the classic fairy tale, Red Riding Hood. We first heard about the film last August and since then